Designed as a complex utility for analyzing your computer’s software and hardware abilities as well as running various tests to stress out components separately, SiSoftware Sandra Lite is one of the most resourceful apps in its category. It includes numerous options that require significant time to get used to if you’re not familiarized with this kind of software. Suffice it to say, it targets power PC users.
Customizable setup and neatly organized UI
The installation procedure is brief and requires some configuration. You can activate a server to allow authenticated users to remotely log in to the computer, as well as ask the tool to restart on time-consuming General Purpose benchmarks in order to prevent video driver reset.
As far as the interface is concerned, SiSoftware keeps it clean and intuitive, with all components broken down into separate categories, such as tools, benchmarks, hardware and software.
View hardware and software data
When it comes to hardware data, it is possible to get a complete overview on the computer (e.g. processors, memory, graphics), storage adapters and devices (e.g. drive geometry, S.M.A.R.T.), mainboard, chipsets, busses, processors, power management, display and video adapters, GP (General Purpose) processors and accelerators, printers and faxes, and so on. Regarding software, the application shows details pertaining to the logical drives, file types, fonts, media devices, operating system, memory usage, processes, modules, services and drives, and more.
Run benchmarks easily, create favorites, export info
There are multiple types of benchmarks available, such as SIMD processor units, ALU and FPU processors, as well as financial analysis. Any tasks that you frequently perform can be added to a favorites list for quick access, while information from any area can be generated into a report and exported to file for close inspection and safekeeping. Modules that you don’t need can be easily deactivated. In addition, it is possible to monitor the environment of your computer.
Evaluation and conclusion
As expected, SiSoftware Sandra Lite stresses CPU and RAM during benchmarks, but it does not hog system resources when displaying information. It has a good response time and can take a while to load data for the components. No error dialogs were shown in our tests, though, and the tool did not hang or crash. All in all, SiSoftware Sandra Lite is an amazing system information and benchmarking utility for advanced users, which comes packed with an interesting set of features. Those looking for more can upgrade to the pro version.
SiSoftware Sandra Lite was designed to be a Windows system analyzer that includes benchmarking, testing and listing modules. It tries to go beyond other utilities to show you more of what is really going on under the hood so you draw comparisons at both a high and low-level in a single product.
You can get information about the CPU, chipset, video adapter, ports, printers, sound card, memory, network, Windows internals, AGP, ODBC Connections, USB2, Firewire etc.
Save, print, fax, e-mail, post, upload or insert into ADO/ODBC databases reports in text, HTML, XML, SMS/DMI or RPT format! This version supports multiple sources of information gathering including: remote computers, PDAs, Smart Phones, ADO/ODBC databases or saved system reports.
All benchmarks are optimised for both SMP & SMT (Hyper-Threading), up to 32/64 CPUs depending on the platform.
Graphics (GPGPU) Processing: Benchmark the graphics performance of the graphics processors (GPGPUs). Such operations are used by specialised software, e.g. scientific software, image manipulation, video decoders/encoders, games that make GPU performance pretty important.
Graphics (GPGPU) Bandwidth: Benchmark the bandwidth of the memory of the graphics processors (GPGPUs) and the bandwidth of the bus that connects them to your computer. The speed at which the data can be sent to the GPGPUs, internally processed and the results sent back is as important as the processing power of the GPGPUs.
Video (GFX) Rendering: Benchmark the graphics performance of the video adapters (GFXs). Shows how your graphics processors handle rendering in comparison to other typical graphics processors. Such operations are used by all graphics software, image manipulation, video decoders/encoders, games and modern operating systems.
Video (GFX) Memory: Benchmark the bandwidth of the memory of the video adapters (GFXs) and the bandwidth of the bus that connects them to your computer.
Cryptographic Performance: Benchmark the cryptographic performance of modern processors that support hardware cryptographic engines. The most common algorithms, AES (AES128, AES256) for encryption/decryption and SHA (SHA1, SHA256) for hashing are supported.
Supports the following Virtual Machines (VM) and Runtime Engines:
– Java Runtime Engine (JRT) 1.6.x (x86/AMD64/EM64T)
– .NET Framework 2.0, 3.0, 3.5 (x86/AMD64/EM64T/IA64)
Supports the following GPGPU Engines:
– AMD STREAM 1.0x (x86/AMD64/EM64T)
– nVidia CUDA 2.0 (x86/AMD64/EM64T)
NOTE: Free for private or educational use
- 4 native architectures support (x86, x64/AMD64/EM64T, IA64/Itanium2, ARM).
- 2 native GPGPU platforms support (AMD CTM/STREAM1, nVidia CUDA1, future Intel).
- 3 native Graphics platforms support (DirectX 9, DirectX 10/10.1).
- 23 established benchmarking modules, 4 new to this version.
- Huge official hardware support through technology partners (Intel, AMD/ATI, SiS, VIA).
- 7 charting options: combined, components, performance vs. speed/power/cost, capacity vs. power/cost charts.
- 6 language versions (English, German, French, Italian, Russian, Chinese) in a single installer.
- Enhanced Sandra Lite version (free for personal/educational use)
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